


Slip of the Text

by JustDrinkTea



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Drinking, Drunken Confessions, First Meetings, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, happy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 12:41:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustDrinkTea/pseuds/JustDrinkTea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Dave Strider and you are in love with a certain John Egbert. He's not in love with you. Nor is he aware of your affections, but one slip of the tongue (or rather, text) may just change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slip of the Text

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by the lovely tumblr user thneedle-thoup. :D
> 
> This was a LOT of fun to write. And it got about 2x as long as I thought it was going to be.
> 
> And then it took me about an hour to figure out the Homestuck skin on here. So if you see any glitches in the formatting, let me know please and thanks!

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB]

TG: john  
TG: john  
TG: john egbert  
TG: hey john  
TG: john i know youre there  
TG: earth to john john do you copy  
TG: john pull that rocket booster out of your ass  
TG: dont make me do it for you man you know i will  
TG: command center is taking control   
EB: dave, holy shit shut up!   
TG: oh there you are   
EB: yes here i am  
EB: now what do you want?  
EB: and make it fast   
TG: are you busy   
EB: yeah kind of   
TG: well that sucks cuz i need to talk to you  
TG: so whatre you doing   
EB: dave!!   
TG: come on man a bros gotta know   
EB: well if you have to know, i'm on a date  
EB: now you know  
EB: now i'm leaving   
TG: just gimme two seconds dude  
TG: so is he cute   
EB: dave, you know i don't like guys like that  
EB: but seriously i have to go  
EB: i need to put my phone away before she notices   
TG: god john youre texting on a date  
TG: wheres your class man  
TG: thought i wouldve taught you better than that   
EB: shit!!!!!!!!  
EB: i really have to go  
EB: i'll yell at you later

ectoBiologist [EB] ceased pestering turntechGodhead [TG]

TG: john wait  
TG: god dammit

You sigh angrily and close out of pesterchum. It was all your fault, you were well aware of this. You were the one who had pushed him to ask the chick out. In your defense, you had been convinced that it was _you_  he constantly raved about for all those months; he never gave out a name, and the long descriptions John wrote out made the girl sound pretty awesome.

Now you were just convinced she was a bitch. 

You lean back in your chair, going back as far as you can without being in danger of falling over backwards. You rub your temples, closing your eyes as you do so. If only you'd had two more minutes to chat with him. That's all you were asking for- just two. Then you could finally tell him. Tell him...

Who are you kidding? What would telling him do? Come on, Dave, get it together; he's not a homosexual, remember?

You groan and push your glasses up and press the heels of your hands into your eyes in frustration. This will never work. If anything, all confessing is going to do is cause a lot of unecessary trouble ending in a broken friendship. You're not sure you could live with yourself if you had to go through that. But at the same time, you can't go on like this.

You let your arms drop down to your sides in defeat. Unfortunately, it offsets your balance and the next you're aware, you're on the floor and your legs are tangled in those of your chair. Your shades have been knocked a few feet away from your face where they should be.

Your life sucks.

Maybe that's an overstatement, but either way, you're unhappy. 

Sighing, you grope around for your glasses, not bothering to move anything more than your arm. It only takes you a few seconds to locate them and return them back to where they belong. They feel better on your face, cool against on the bridge of your nose and darkening the bright world. And then you remember they were a gift from John and the moment is ruined. Regardless, you leave them on your face; all things considered, you're pretty sure they make you feel better. Or at least you think they do.

"...fuck."

You distangle yourself from the chair and stand up only to collapse onto your bed. You let your legs hang off the edge and kick off your converse so you can wriggle your toes around. You lay there like that for an hour trying to convince yourself that John's relationship won't last more than a week. 

It does.

 

TG: so have you fucked her yet   
EB: no way, man!  
EB: but someone DID get to second base   
TG: wow an entire month and all you got was second base  
TG: you wild animal  
TG: watch out ladies theres a predator on the loose   
EB: you're an ass  
EB: you know that, right?   
TG: yup   
EB: :B  
EB: hey so did you ask your bro yet?

Shit. You'd forgotten.

TG: yeah man  
TG: its all taken care of  
TG: all you need is your plane ticket and then youll be chillin in the lap of luxury  
TG: aka the strider apartment  
TG: theyre synonymous i swear by the almighty thesaurus gods above

You could take it up with Bro later; he wouldn't give a shit about one more person in the house for a week. But Bro was never a concern. IF there was anything to be worried about, it was yourself. While you were pretty confident in your abilities to keep things hidden via verbal conversation (or text-based as was the usual situation), but you could only keep a poker face for so long.

EB: great!!!!!!!!  
EB: i'll get my dad to get all my stuff together!  
EB: then i can get down there in a few weeks, probably!

You stare at the screen for a good couple of seconds, watching as his enthusiastic messages continue to pop up- one after the other. You close out of the application, disconnecting from the conversation.

When John asks about it the next day, you blame it on poor internet connection. As you would expect, he buys the excuse without hesitation or question.

The next couple of weeks pass by without much incident. He talks on and on about his girlfriend (guess who still hasn't made it past second base?) and you pretend to care just like a best friend should. In reality, it's tearing you apart. Every word, every sentence. You hate him for it, but at the same time you feel very, very jealous. Oh what you wouldn't give to strife with that bitch of a home-wrecker. Okay maybe she wasn't that extreme, but you still hated her guts.

And then the moment of truth came. They say that 24 hours can make or break a man. You hoped to every sort of god/diety out there that you would be able to last this night and come out prepared to face the week. But that night before John came did not make you better prepared like you had hoped. Oh no, that would make things to easy for you. 

No, it seemed that the world decided to deliver one final 'fuck you' to Mr. Dave Strider; and it was delivered in the form of an alcoholic beverage. 

You had only meant to have one little bit, just to calm your nerves a little. You were unable to sleep, either out of anxiety or anticipation or nerves... exactly what it was that was keeping you up you couldn't be sure. But you knew that if you were going to be the one greeting Egbert at the airplane gate in the morning, you needed to get at least a little bit of sleep. 

It had seemed like a sensible idea at the time, really, sneaking a bit from Bro's cabinet. It wasn't like your brother would ever care; you were always open to drink, but usually chose not to. "Usually" being the key word. 

You reached for the first thing that caught your eye- a big bottle of vodka. Yeah, that looked good. You stared at it for a while, debating on whether or not it would be worth it to get a glass. You decided against the extra effort and unscrewed the cap with surprisingly steady fingers. You only hesitated a moment before bringing the bottle to your lips. It's only a few seconds later that you've broken into a coughing fit. The stuff doesn't taste that bad but holy shit does it burn going down. You lean against the counter, eyes tearing up a little bit behind your shades.

You cough a little bit more. "Jesus christ...!" you manage after a few harsh moments. You hold up the bottle to your face, trying to give it the worst look you can possibly muster. And then you take another sip. Slower and less than you had the first time, but you're still left trying to clear your throat from the uncomfortable warmth that's settled itself inside of you.

Twenty minutes, and a few more sips, later and you feel a lot better than you had at the beginning of the night. A lot fucking better. You actually can't believe you were so worked up about such stupid things. You set the bottle down on the counter.

Wait, why did you put it down again?

...wait what did you put down?

Your face contorts a little bit as you try to remember. Wow this is annoying. Maybe if you walk around you'll remember. You do that, but instead of recalling any of your previous actions, you end up tripping on a cord and fall flat on your face.

You lay there for a good couple of minutes, trying to discern what that funny smell in the carpet is. It kind of smells like coffee. And piss at the same time. ...it's probably coffee, you decide. You roll over onto your back, laying spread eagle on the floor. It's pretty nice, actually. You begin to wonder why you don't spend more time on the floor. More people should spend time on the floor. Including you. Including John.

You sit up.

_John!_ That's right. You had something you wanted to say to john. You dig your phone out of your pocket and press a few buttons until the screen finally lights up. It takes you another thirty seconds or so to find the pesterchum app. Once you manage to pull it up and get logged in, you decide to take a moment to figure out exactly what it was you wanted to say. You can't just start saying nonsense and come off as some sort of babbling idiot, after all. There was something really really, _really_ important you had to say to him. What was it? Oh yeah.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering ectoBiologist [EB]

EB is an idle chum!

TG: yo  
TG: youe guirlfreind iis a butch  
TG: *bitch

You ignore the fact that John is idle for the moment; he's probably on the plane now and will get the message when he arrives at the gate. Besides, you're feeling pretty damn good about yourself right now. Way to go, Strider. Point for you.

But as good as your feeling, you can't help but wonder... wasn't there something else you wanted to tell him? You ponder it over for a minute or so. Oh yeah. There was, wasn't there?

TG: by teh wsay  
TG: i love yuo masn  
TG: *man  
TG: homno alll teh ways  
TG: no iorny or mothin  
TG: i love uoy do godanm mich  
TG: so godaam muvh  
TG: skldgheialsdkf  
TG: fleiufheaoi  
TG: slkdjfffffffffffffffdddddddddddddddddddddddddkdlewefwalekgj

You pass out on the floor with your face pressed up against the screen of your phone.

The next morning, you wake up with the worst headache you've ever experienced. You groan and curl up onto your side, cradling your throbbing skull in your arms. "Holy shit...." You feel more ready than ever to die.

For a few minutes, you just lay there, feeling sorry for yourself, but you decide that it would be better to get up on your own and deal with this pain than have your brother come in and get you up himself.

with that thought in mind, you're up in just a few seconds. Your phone is still clutched in your hand, but it died halfway through the night and is completely useless to you and the rest of humanity for at least half an hour. You set it on the counter, your elbows following. The cool wood beneath your skin feels nice, but it's in no way enough to combat the headache and the nausea you're experiencing.

Lazily, you glance up, spying the bottle from last night sitting only a couple feet away. It's about 2/3 full now. You do your best to try and remember how full it had been before you took a few swigs, but even that little effort makes your brain pound against your skull and you decide to figure it out later.

The clock on the wall catches your attention for some odd reason. And then you remember: you still have to go and pick up John this morning. You groan at the mere thought and then cringe at the pain the sudden sound caused. It was going to be a very long day.

Somehow, you managed to get yourself breakfast (complete with ibuprofen) and into a pair of skinny jeans. You're actually pretty proud of yourself and feel a bit better than you had when you first got up. As you drive to the airport, you try to make sense of what had happened the previous night. You felt like you were in some sort of bad Ke$ha song or something; _what happened last night, trendy pop singer?_ But not even some alcoholic, trashy, white chick could probably decipher your actions last night.

You park and do your best to make it through the airport without seeming too hungover. You're fairly sure you do a decent job, too; but there's an awful lot of noise in an airport and you consider just leaving and waiting out in the car. But Lady Luck seems to favor you today (of all days) and John's plane arrives a few minutes early.

And suddenly, he's standing in front of you- all bucktooth grins and messy hair. He's just as dorky as you pictured him to be, but all you can think of his how perfectly adorable he is. You stare at him for a good couple of seconds, using all the self-control you have to not run up to him and take his small frame into your thin arms and....

You're confused. There should've been a tender, loving bro embrace by now. John should've initiated it. But instead he's just looking at you. He's still got that grin on his face, but it looks a little forced.

"This wasn't exactly the warm first meeting I expected, Egbert," you chastise, most of your headache forgotten for the moment in his presence.

He shuffles his feet awkwardly. "Yeah.... Sorry." He looks like he's expecting you to say something and suddenly, the situation got a lot more awkward than either of you would have liked.

You suggest you go and grab his suitcase before some cheap-ass scumbag decides to snatch it and he complies, but not as enthusiastically as you had been expecting. You try to convince yourself that he's just tired from the flight. You hope you're right. As the two of you make your way over, you try to start a conversation. "So how's your lady, lover boy?" you ask, looking over your shoulder back at him.

He's silent. At least for about a minute. Then he stops dead in his tracks and bursts out, "I made her up!"

Now you stop. And your headache's returned... with a vengeance. "You what?"

"I... made her up? ...to make... you jealous?"

You squint at him then look around the airport in confusion. "I'm still drunk, aren't I?

"You were- oh well that explains it." Suddenly he looks a little panicked. "You did mean what you said, though right?"

"What? Yeah, I was drunk."

"No, not about that!" He goes and digs his phone out of his pocket. He takes a few seconds to pull up something and then shoves it in your face. " _This!_ "

It takes you a little longer than usual to decipher the symbols on his screen, but when you finally grasp the meaning of the broken words and sentences, you almost panic. Almost. You're a Strider, for christ's sake and Striders don't panic. But then, you don't know what to do. Play it off like a joke? Oh haha no, I'm just pulling your leg! Got you, John, you're a real sucker you know that? No that's not the way to go. Be creative, Strider! Do _something!_

There must be some alcohol left in your system or something because before you know it, you're leaning forward and you're holding onto John just as tightly as your hungover body can manage. "Yeah," you say finally, suddenly breathless. You curse yourself for being so god damned cliche. "Yeah I did."

He melts into you and you can't quite make out what he says, but it sounds a bit like, "Good. Because, well, me too."

And you smile a little. Because as soon as you're over this headache, it is going to be an awesome week.

**Author's Note:**

> This is more pesterlog heavy than I initially intended for it to be. Sorry if that got annoying at all ono


End file.
